Self-Driving Porsches Are Not in the Plans
Porsche has no plans to join in the self-driving car race.
“One wants to drive a Porsche by oneself,” said Chief Executive Oliver Blume in an interview with Westfalen-Blatt. “An iPhone belongs in your pocket, not on the road,” said Blume, stressing that Porsche does not need to team up with any major tech companies to build its cars.
Porsche joins Lamborghini in publicly decrying self-driving cars, sticking to their roots as builders of sports cars meant to deliver ultimate driving pleasure to the driver.
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The German sports car builder won’t find itself behind the times though, as Porsche is currently investing in a plug-in hybrid version of the 911 along with the Mission E all-electric sports car. The plug-in 911 is said to offer about 31 miles of range and should hit the market by 2018, while the Mission E is totally electric and aims for a range of over 300 miles with 600 horsepower on tap. It is being built in a brand new $1.1 billion facility and is set to arrive by 2020.
While cross town rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz move towards self-driving cars, Porsche will continue building cars just for drivers.
[Source: Reuters]
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Stephen covers all of the day-to-day events of the industry as the News Editor at AutoGuide, along with being the AG truck expert. His truck knowledge comes from working long days on the woodlot with pickups and driving straight trucks professionally. When not at his desk, Steve can be found playing his bass or riding his snowmobile or Sea-Doo. Find Stephen on <A title="@Selmer07 on Twitter" href="http://www.twitter.com/selmer07">Twitter</A> and <A title="Stephen on Google+" href="http://plus.google.com/117833131531784822251?rel=author">Google+</A>
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